Dream shopping trips
BUYING a horse can be a frustrating process. Wading through adverts, deciphering sales speak, elusive sellers, disappointing viewings… Even when you do find the right horse, you have to fend off other buyers, haggle over a price, and hope it passes the vet. If finding one gem is difficult enough, imagine how rare it is to buy two brilliant horses on the same day. Rare — but not impossible.
Irish showjumper Commandant John Ledingham made history in 1994 when becoming the first rider to win the Hickstead speed Derby and Derby in the same year, a feat he repeated 12 months later with the same pair of horses. John found his winning horses, Kilbaha and Castlepollard, on the same day, having persuaded the purchase board — who bought all the horses for the Irish Equitation School — to buy them for him to ride.
“We were always on the lookout for the next superstar,” recalls John,
